FOCAL Sib Evo Dolby Atmos 5.1.2 speaker package
Versatile little speakers plus subwoofer, and a hidden talent for the heights of Dolby Atmos.
Even after being in this game for quite a while now, I am startled by how relentlessly the home theatre and home entertainment experience improves, year by year, decade by decade. Especially at the affordable quality end of the market. Take as an example the Focal Sib Evo Dolby Atmos speaker system, the subject of this review.
Yes, it is affordable, especially for a 5.1.2 system — the regular surround channels, a subwoofer, a centre channel, and Dolby Atmos-enabled front stereo speakers. It costs $1500. You’ll have to add an AV receiver, and you’d surely want a 7.1-channel Atmos model to take advantage of the height abilities. So with that added, it’ll costs more than most premium soundbars. But this system would then quite kill them in terms of performance.
Equipment
Let’s get back to what is provided here. There is a standard Sib Evo system available, which basically consists of five identical speakers plus a subwoofer. That’s available for $1250. In this Atmos version, the front two speakers are similar to the standard Sib Evo speakers (below right), but a little larger (below left) to accommodate the additional upwards-firing 100mm full-range driver. The front pair are 295mm tall while the rest are 252mm tall. But each packs a 130mm bass/
midrange driver and a 19mm tweeter with a 3.5kHz crossover. The front pair have two small bass reflex ports at the front (but still behind the grille). The others have a bass reflex port at the back.
All five of these speakers come with sculpted rubber stands. These are held on with a single screw which can be loosened by hand, allowing the base of the speaker to slide forward to angle the face upwards. Or it can be removed entirely. Two wall brackets are included in the pack. These can be used for any two of the speakers — the surrounds seeming the most likely candidates for this.
Wiring is via custom spring-clips. A button which matches the piano-gloss finish of the enclosures is depressed, allowing wire between 0.75 and 2mm to be inserted into a hole. There’s an extra button and two extra holes on the Atmos-enabled units.
The subwoofer is a compact near-cube, maxing out at 305mm on the height dimension. It weighs eight kilograms. Inside is a downwards-firing 210mm ‘Polyflex’ driver and a 200W Class-D amplifier. There are line-level inputs, but not speaker-level. A phase reversal switch is fitted along with a level control and a low-pass filter control. Focal rates the frequency response of the subwoofer as 35 to 150Hz ± 3dB, with the -6dB point at 30Hz.
Performance
I suspect that this speaker system would typically be paired with entry-to-mid-level AV receivers. I had the Yamaha Aventage RX-A3070 receiver available, so that’s what I used — we could be sure of hearing the best from the Focals this way. We used only seven of its nine channels, of course, and naturally it has plenty of power — 150W per channel — and supports all the latest audio standards, including Dolby Atmos, Dolby Surround and DTS:X.
Yamaha’s standard YMAO set-up procedure set all but one of the speakers to ‘Small’, appropriately, but kept the centre channel as ‘Large’, inappropriately. The front left and right had 80Hz crossovers, the surround channels had 120Hz and the Atmos enabled sections had 160Hz crossovers. I changed the centre channel to small at 80Hz, and also set the surrounds to 80Hz. (Don’t ever rely on any auto calibration system for speaker size. Check and adjust afterwards. The manual provided with the speakers recommended 80Hz.)
The distances were set accurately, of course. Receivers usually get that right. And even though the Atmos-enabled modules were the same physical distance from the measurement microphone as the main front drivers, the receiver determined a 1.3-metre greater distance for them, suggesting that Focal has got the directionality thing worked out quite well.
The EQ curves calculated by the Yamaha tended to boost the lower treble by a few decibels. I did almost all my listening with the EQ set to Yamaha’s ‘Flat’ EQ position, but I also experimented a little with EQ bypassed, and in the latter case the tonal balance remained highly pleasing.
One of the things I like about Yamaha network receivers is that if you send DTS-encoded surround, ripped from DTS CDs, to them via the network, they understand it and decode it properly. So that’s what I did with the ‘Every Breath You Take’ best-of from The Police. This transfer has a great surround mix
of those well-worn tracks, albeit with even brighter cymbals than stereo renditions. This along with the spare sound of the group can be quite revealing of any lack of control.
There was not the slightest evidence of that. Control was excellent. Instruments and vocals punched out and receded without any sloppiness. As the bass kicked in after the introductory bars of Message in a Bottle, the subwoofer revealed itself to be perfectly happy with delivering the Police’s always clean and strong bass... well, cleanly and strongly. Again, it was tight, and surprisingly well extended. Certainly the kick drum was conveyed with full power and, again, well damped so that there was no ringing or flabbiness. Likewise for Sting’s bass — clean and powerful as is essential for this music.
The high-hat cymbals throughout Walking on the Moon largely occupied a single, precise position between left and centre channel, but seeming to be placed higher than the speakers themselves by a metre. I note that this was when listening in ‘Straight’ mode, so there was no Dolby Surround processing to add any height to the sound. Later on the track there is a delightful moment as the high-hat starts circling through the speakers, each tick coming from a different place, and again this was up high, swirling around overhead.
So what about some stereo? As it happens, a (now favourite!) member of my family gifted me a fresh new vinyl pressing of Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s self-titled 1970 debut album. I used these speakers in stereo mode — EQ on, subwoofer in play, but no other processing — for my very first listen of Side Two. This opens with Emerson on the Royal Festival Hall organ, and the grind of the bass was impressive, as was the delivery of the hall space, as though it were a live recording (which inevitably it kind of was).
And I listened loud. Anyone wandering in would no doubt have looked around in bemusement. Where were the giant floorstanding speakers producing these prodigious sound levels? No, it was just the SIB Evo speakers. Even when the massive explosion in The Three Fates arrived — I’d braced myself a little, fearing disappointment — it came seemingly uncompressed, full, with more powerful bass than I’d expected.
The relatively ballodic Lucky Man which closes the album was delivered with good bite on the guitar, a very respectable stereo sound stage and drums which punched out at the appropriate level, able to be easily followed without difficulty even in some of the more intricate patterns.
But how about movies I hear you ask? Once again the surround performance was excellent, and even with films large in scope there were no obvious limitations. In preparation for taking in the latest Star Wars movie my family and I re-watched The Force Awakens to remind ourselves of the story so far. The result was thrilling. Surround placement was excellent. The Blu-ray version is neither Atmos nor DTS:X, but Dolby Surround processing did a fine job of adding significant height material to the signal, and the Sib Evo Atmos fronts made full use of it to increase the sense of immersion, occasionally producing a clear image from points above us.
I hadn’t been paying particular attention to the bass, because the subwoofer wasn’t doing anything to draw attention to itself. Which is to say that it was delivering what it was supposed to, no more and only a little less. Of course it didn’t explore the depths of my regular sub (which extends a further octave down), but one thing about it that did startle was when I had to leave my test room — which is a separate structure — for a little while and go into the house. I began to notice that sense of rumbling. Oh, yes! It was the subwoofer producing sufficient deep bass to pass through the walls, the space to the house, and the house walls to where I was.
Sometimes I recommend a compact sound system like this for people in apartments and the like where they may wish to avoid disturbing the neighbours. A small sub tends to avoid producing structure-penetrating deep bass. This one seems to produce plenty.(Don’t worry, you can still use it in an apartment. Just be prepared to turn it down.)
Conclusion
As happens, I suspect, for many readers, I am sometime tempted by soundbars. Indeed, for domestic tranquility I have acceded to the use of a soundbar on one of our TVs, when I’d have preferred something a little bulkier. But the Focal Sib Evo Dolby Atmos speaker system shows that for not much more than the price of a premium soundbar you can obtain a system that delivers extremely good, high powered surround and stereo sound. If $1500 is in your price bracket, go, find a dealer. Listen and see if you agree. Stephen Dawson